So total crash on the server running the FloodRiskNet web site has finally driven me to move it over to the dedicated server I set up for it a while ago. It's been running since the outset on a machine which is also used for heavy computation and I've put off moving it for a long time because the site is running on a rather volatile collection of pre-release Zope packages.
I had the idea that moving the Zope database between machines, particularly from Windows to UNIX, was difficult. Added to which there was already a different version of Zope running on the new machine.
It turned out to be really quite straightforward, and in the process I learnt a whole lot more about managing Zope. It turns out that running multiple Zope instances on a single UNIX server, even with different sets or versions of packages for each instance and with different versions of Zope for different instances is a doddle using zopectl. You can set up any number of instances with completely different configurations, bring them up and down independently or in named groups, share some packages between them and still have some packages specific to an instance, and so on.
In the process I also set up a testing instance with the latest Zope and Plone combination. The current stable Plone is a huge improvement from the prerelease version that FloodRiskNet is still running on, but the prerelease version 1.1 looks quite spectacular. User and group management through the Plone interface (and group management at all for that matter), including the ability for the web site manager to change members settings which was something I had to hack together myself for the FloodRiskNet site. If I can only get Archetypes working then it will be time that I must start working on an update for the site. With Archetypes I should finally be able to add without too much fuss some custom content types, and start building the web site I originally envisaged to act as the hub of a research network. Publications, projects, network meetings and more.
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